Last night I  was able to view my media from my Vista machine to my Original Xbox. 

 Things needed:

1. XP Media Center 05 CD

2. Install http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx

3. Microsoft Media Center Extender for Xbox

 

Download the Virtual PC software,  then create an XP MediaCenter image.  Install the XP Media Center 05 on that Virtual image (Make sure you install the XP Media Roll up update after the install). 

 

After you create the XP Media Center image, make sure you can see the Vista machine from the network on the Virtual XP Media Center machine so you can grab those files later.  When  finished, install the Xbox Media Center software on the Virtual XP Machine

 

Once thats all installed and you can see the media on Vista through the  network .  Insert the Xbox Extender CD in your Xbox.

Should be in business then!

Good to hear that works, Arme00!

I'm stunned!  If I can get this going, the wife is going to love me again!

I've got a few questions though.  What do you mean by "grabbing those files later"?

An how did you set up the virtual pc to be able to see the recorded tv?

 

Thanks

Pat

On my Vista Machine I have a TV Tuner and record shows from there.  The problem is the Virtual machine will not see the TV tuner.   When I said "Grabbing the files", I meant sharing the Vista Public Folder, where you have your music, videos and recorded TV.  On the XP Virtual machine you need to point to that directory. When you open XP Media center it will see your shared media from Vista..

I have ran into some problems though where sometimes that shared directory isnt visible on the Original Xbox Extender.  Last night I had to copy some recorded TV from Vista Media Center and paste it into the Virual XP Machine. Im looking for a easier way to see that shared folder .

Would the "visibility" of the share directory from Vista to the virtual machine be different if you were to run vmware?.

Just a thought...

edit:  another thought is to create a mapped drive letter to \\<vistamachine>\<shared public folder>

This is extremely interesting and most definitely worth a shot.  The TV tuner issue is a big one though.  I wonder if there's any way to cross the chasm here...

Find something that will "talk" to the vista image from the XP image, and maybe start a recording when prompted, making that recording available to the XP image immediately, mimicking live TV.  Or, just picking it up from the TV buffer directory somehow?

Thoughts?

 

I think i recall that the guy who makes dvr-ms toolbox (forgive me, I'm useless with names) has an app that detects recording conflicts and hand off any conflicts to another machine(s) on his network using IP protocol. something like this could be used. for example : extender sets a recording on the mce 2005 virtual machine, if this could automatically be marked as having a conflict it would send the request over the network to the physical machine it resides on, in this case running vista. Assuming you set both os's up to have the same epg (tricking the virtual machine that it has a tuner) vista would make the recording and you could stick it in a shared folder for the extender to view later.

worth thinking about for all those v1 extender users

Hmm...I never thought about Andy's app for that.  I was actually thinking more along the lines of Ryan's software remote...if he could integrate that into the 10' interface for MCE somehow...

Have it send a channel change a record command on 'yyy' channel to the Vista box.

 

Vengence_Irl:

I think i recall that the guy who makes dvr-ms toolbox (forgive me, I'm useless with names) has an app that detects recording conflicts and hand off any conflicts to another machine(s) on his network using IP protocol. something like this could be used. for example : extender sets a recording on the mce 2005 virtual machine, if this could automatically be marked as having a conflict it would send the request over the network to the physical machine it resides on, in this case running vista. Assuming you set both os's up to have the same epg (tricking the virtual machine that it has a tuner) vista would make the recording and you could stick it in a shared folder for the extender to view later.

worth thinking about for all those v1 extender users

First of all, thank you for this post.  I was able to get a XP MCE VM setup last night on my Vista Ultimate box and my XBOX original is now able to link to it on the network.  However, I am unable to view any of the content that I have mapped from the Vista box.  I have tried:
- Mapping a named drive from Vista to the XP MCE box
- Using TweakUI to change the default location of the "Special Drives"
  - My Pictures
  - My Music
  - My Video
  to the relative folders within the mapped drive.

On the XP MCE VM box I can play all of the content that is on the Vista box, but when I try to view or play any of this content from the XBOX, it's simply not visible.  Sometimes, it will show the mapped folder, but when you navigate into it, it just disappears.

I'm anxious to hear some feedback on this as I have spent a good amount of time searching for a solution.
Thanks!

If it's a VM box is CableCARD involved?  None of those recordings are going to play on the Xbox v1.

Hi,

 

 FYI, this wont work if you only have an OEM XP 'recovery disk' set. It apparently needs a retail XP disk or stand alone OEM disk. Anyways, I ended up buying the xbox 360...but I tried!!

 

Paul

I'm so close to getting this to work but every time I try to start my XBox extender software it claims that there was a problem with my Media Center PC activation and to reactivate it.

Any idea what might be wrong?

I could never get it to work with Vista so I opted to go the XBMC route and it has worked incredibly for several months.

Umm - the only reason you would need to do this is if you were going to try and watch TV and get guide information to your Xbox. Otherwise just share the drive, install a softmod BIOS to your Xbox and instal XBMC (Xbox Media Center). Native SMB sharing make it easy in XBMC!!!!

Steinway:

Umm - the only reason you would need to do this is if you were going to try and watch TV and get guide information to your Xbox. Otherwise just share the drive, install a softmod BIOS to your Xbox and instal XBMC (Xbox Media Center). Native SMB sharing make it easy in XBMC!!!!

Thats exactly what I was thinking while reading thru this thread.  XBMC will make you fall in love with that little $60 black xbox.  I have one in my bedroom, 2 at my parents house, 1 at my brothers house... all running XBMC.